Excavation teeth are provided on the digging edge of various pieces of excavation equipment such as the buckets of front end loaders. Each excavation tooth is formed of a number of tooth members, commonly a point and an adapter and one or more locks for locking the tooth members together. The adapter is typically fitted to the excavation equipment and the point fits over a nose of the adapter and is retained in place by the lock. In some instances one or more intermediate tooth members may also be included between the point and the adapter. For ease of description it is to be understood that, unless the context requires otherwise, the term “adapter” used in this specification includes both the adapter arranged to be fitted to the excavation equipment or, if one or more intermediate tooth members are provided, to that intermediate tooth member(s) or to the combination of the adapter and the intermediate tooth member(s).
Also, unless the context requires otherwise, the term “nose” used in this specification is a projecting portion to which a tooth member of the excavation tooth is mounted and includes a projecting portion on the excavation equipment to which the adapter is mounted, a projecting part on the adapter to which the point or intermediate tooth member is mounted and a projecting part on the intermediate tooth member to which the point or other tooth members are mounted.
The reason that the excavation tooth is formed of a number of parts is to avoid having to discard the entire tooth when only a part of the tooth, in particular the ground engaging part of the tooth (i.e. the point) is worn or broken.
Excavation equipment may also be provided with shrouds that fit over the digging edge to protect the edge from wear and are locked in place using some form of locking arrangement. Shrouds may be provided in between the excavation teeth attached to the digging edge, or where teeth are not present, shrouds may be provided across the digging edge.
The tooth members (including the adaptors and points) and the shrouds may all be considered to be “wear members” because they are provided on the excavation equipment to wear during use, rather than the equipment itself. The wear members, once worn, can be detached and replaced. This saves having to replace a much larger component such as a front end loader bucket or a dredging head.
Various types of locks, shrouds, points and adapters are known. However, it is always desirable to design new excavation tooth assemblies and parts thereof.